Industry Collaboration Forum Speaker Bios
Vice Provost for Research and William Ziegler III Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
Dr. Crair obtained his doctoral degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral training in physics and neuroscience at Kyoto University and Kyoto Prefectural Medical School in Japan and in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas before coming to Yale as a member of the Department of Neuroscience in 2007. He has directed Yale’s Vision Core Program, the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, was Deputy Chair of the Department of Neuroscience from 2015-2017, then Deputy Dean for Scientific Affairs at the School of Medicine from 2017-2020 when he became the Vice Provost for Research at Yale University.
President and Chief Executive Officer, QuantumCT
Dr. Green was appointed QuantumCT's inaugural President and Chief Executive Officer in March 2025. A successful physicist and entrepreneur, Dr. Green has over 30 years of experience at the intersection of technology, innovation, and corporate leadership. In additional to his professional background, Dr. Green has served on a variety of boards and councils, including on U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on government policies and programs that affect U.S. manufacturing and provides a forum for proposing solutions to industry-related problems. He holds 26 patents in the areas of photonic systems, displays, and advanced materials. Dr. Green holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University.
University Executive Director, Corporate Strategy & Engagement
Kathy joined Yale in 2019 with more than 20 years of experience in industry partnerships, university-based research, cross cultural project management, training and development, and fundraising. In her current role, Kathy collaborates with faculty and other campus stakeholders to grow and sustain substantial mutually beneficial corporate partnerships that support Yale’s mission to improve the world through exceptional research and scholarship. Her team’s activities center around three strategies: business development, strategy and policy alignment, and communications and collaboration.
Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics & Applied Physics
Dr. Girvin joined the Yale faculty in 2001. In 2007 he was named Deputy Provost for Science and Technology and in 2015 became Deputy Provost for Research. He helped oversee entrepreneurship, innovation, and tech transfer at Yale. After completing his undergraduate degree in physics from Bates College, Girvin earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University and Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. He works closely with the experimental team at Yale developing circuit QED into a practical architecture for the construction of a quantum computer.
VP & General Manager of Compute Products
As Vice President and General Manager of Compute Products at Quantinuum, Jenni is responsible for the profit and loss (P&L) and overall general management and product delivery of our compute products which include InQuanto, H-Series Hardware (both cloud and HaaS) and Quantinuum Nexus. Jenni brings 14 years of prior experience in the aerospace industry, with roles in offering management, product line management, operations, project management, and new product and technology development. She has 19 awarded patents and holds a doctorate degree in atomic physics.
Sterling Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics; Director of the Yale Quantum Institute; Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Quantum Circuits, Inc.
Dr. Schoelkopf's research focuses on the development of superconducting devices for quantum information processing. His group is a leader in the development of solid-state quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computing, and the advancement of their performance to practical levels. His lab has produced many firsts in the field based on these ideas, including the development of a “quantum bus” for information, and the first demonstrations of quantum algorithms and quantum error correction with integrated circuits. A graduate of Princeton University, Schoelkopf earned his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology.
Associate Vice President for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Dr. Banerjee has decades of experience in the industry, management consulting, university leadership, and building research enterprises through catalyzing university-based research innovation with a goal of community impact. Dr. Banerjee has a wide range of experience in building new strategic initiatives, technology transfer, patent monetization, corporate strategic alliances, and management consulting in strategy and operations. Dr. Banerjee holds a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology and an MBA from Suffolk University.
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Dr. Balatsky earned his Master of Science degree at Moscow Physical Technology Institute in 1984 and Doctor of Philosophy at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1987. He moved to the United States in 1989 as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois. He then moved to Los Alamos National Laboratory as an Oppenheimer Fellow. His research interests include quantum materials, dirac materials, superconductivity, multiferroic, quantum imaging, noise spectroscopy, materials informatics, and DNA spectroscopy. Balatsky is known for his contributions to the theory of High-temperature superconductivity, and the mechanism of superconducting pairing known as Spin Fluctuation Theory. According to this theory, the pairing wave function of the cuprate HTS should have a dx2-y2 symmetry.
Assistant Professor of Physics
Dr. Sochnikov completed his undergraduate studies in Physics and Computer Sciences, and master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics at Bar-Ilan University. Ilya studies emergent phenomena in several condensed matter systems. The main tool for these experiments is the state-of-the-art magnetic SQUID microscopy. In this context, emergent phenomena includes quantum phase transitions. The material systems of an immediate interest include topological insulators, superconductors, and frustrated magnets.
John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry
A member of the Yale faculty since 2001, Dr. Batista has served as a full professor of chemistry since 2008. He was director of undergraduate studies from 2008 to 2010 and was appointed as the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Chemistry in 2019, a position he held until his appointment as the John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry in March 2022. He currently serves as a member of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Advisory Committee. More recently, he pioneered the use of quantum computing to study complex chemical reaction dynamics and the development of quantum algorithms to exploit quantum computing technology for chemistry research.
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Dr. Zhus' research focuses on developing electronic structure theory and numerical algorithms for simulating complex quantum phenomena in molecules, materials, and molecule-material interfaces. His research seeks to understand how electronic interactions and movements govern chemical reactions and material properties, by bridging modern advances in areas including quantum chemistry, condensed matter theory, and machine learning. The developed computational techniques will be applied to address challenges in design of transition metal catalysts, heterogeneous quantum materials, and organic-inorganic solar cells. Dr. Zhu received his B.S. in Chemical Physics from University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from MIT.
Director of Venture Development
Vivek has extensive experience in private equity and venture capital investing, starting his career at Intellectual Ventures, a $6B fund based in Seattle. Before joining UConn, he was Managing Partner, New Ventures at Ventech Solutions where he focused on Private Equity transactions. He has extensive experience in medical device development, technology transfer, intellectual property management, and fund raising for early-stage companies.
Assistant Professor in Residence - Chemistry
Dr. Ozuguzel earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Boğaziçi University in Turkey in 2016 and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Texas Tech University in 2023. His research focuses on computational chemistry, biophysics, and machine learning applications in molecular sciences. He specializes in protein – ligand / protein – protein docking, lipid nanoparticle (LNP) modeling, quantum mechanics (QM and QM/MM), and electronic state calculations (TD-DFT). Dr. Ozuguzel actively applies molecular dynamics simulations and electronic structure calculations to problems at the interface of chemistry, biology, and data science.
Associate Professor of Physics
Dr. Jain completed her undergraduate studies in Physics and Mathematics at Shri Sahu Ji Maharaj University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. Subsequently, she received her master’s degree in physics from Shri Sahu Ji Maharaj University and completed her Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Puerto Rico. Her current research interests are in the science and engineering of various interesting functional metal-oxide materials (such as dielectric, ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, multiferroic, magnetoelectric, and thermoelectric).
Senior Research Scientist, Applied Physics
Frederick J. Walker is currently Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Applied Physics at Yale University. Prior to joining Yale, he was a Research Professor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory working with Dr. Rodney McKee. He is an expert in the fabrication of epitaxial thin film heterostructures by molecular beam epitaxy and their characterization using synchrotron-based methods. His research focuses on the physics of crystalline oxides on semiconductors, chalcogenide and oxide heterostructures, and high-resolution X-ray characterization of heterointerfaces.